


When Will My Life Begin

by imaginary_golux



Series: Fractured Fairy Tales [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Blindness, But He Gets Better, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Rapunzel Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7228942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Take a beautiful person in a tower, and a handsome prince, and a faithful companion animal, and an evil enchanter...mix well.</p><p>This is all beautifullights' fault.</p><p>Beta by my Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

FN-2187 has never known any home but his tower. It’s a tall tower - taller than the trees around it, in any case, though he doesn’t know how tall towers _normally_ are - and it’s very comfortable, but sometimes he does wonder what the rest of the world is like. Do most people live in towers like this, far away from everyone else, and only a few people like Master Ren move around between the towers, bringing food to the people in their towers? Or do most people live in - in not-towers, or in towers close together? Do most people get to walk around in the forest, like Master Ren does and Finn has always kind of wanted to? Is grass as soft as it looks?

These and many other questions FN-2187 is not foolish enough to ask Master Ren. Master Ren does not like questions. Master Ren does not like disobedience. Master Ren does not like a lot of things, including - so far as FN-2187 can tell - FN-2187 himself. Master Ren comes by once a month, on the day before the dark of the moon, bringing FN-2187’s supplies for the next month, and questions FN-2187 quickly and brusquely: has anyone else been there? Has FN-2187 spoken to anyone, or tried to leave the tower?

Once when FN-2187 was younger, he tried to leave the tower. He made it halfway down the outside before he lost his grip and fell, and the briars at the bottom caught him. Master Ren came and found him the next day, scratched all to hell and weeping with it, and bundled him back into the tower and swore at him for almost an hour, threatening dreadful punishments should Finn ever attempt such a thing again, and since then FN-2187 hasn’t quite dared repeat the experiment.

FN-2187 is, as nearly as he can tell, almost twenty-one, and frankly he is bored. He has books to read, but he has read them all many times. He makes his own clothing, carves his own furniture, cleans his own rooms, but honestly that doesn’t take very long each day. He talked Master Ren into bringing him a spinning wheel a few years ago, and a great heap of wool, and has been trying to spin a thread as tall as the tower every day, and weave them into a great long rope in the evenings. He’s not sure he’ll be brave enough to use it when it’s done - honestly, it might be done _now_ , it’s as thick around as his wrist and doesn’t break no matter how hard he pulls on it - but he’s not sure he wants to leave the safety of his tower, the dubious sanctuary of Master Ren’s protection. For all he knows, the rest of the world is even colder and crueller than Master Ren.

*

He’s sitting in the window one evening, plaiting his rope together and whistling along with the birds as they call back and forth, when someone at the bottom of the tower calls, “Hello up there!”

FN-2187 startles and looks down. There’s a man standing on the grass, well away from the briars, smiling up in the dim light. He is - FN-2187 thinks he’s very nice to look at, actually. He has a very nice smile, and his voice is pleasant, not cold like Master Ren’s.

“Hello down there,” FN-2187 replies, smiling back. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Poe - Poe Dameron,” the man on the ground says. “And who are you, lovely?”

“I’m FN-2187,” FN-2187 says.

“That’s...not a name, that’s a number,” Poe says slowly. “D’you mind if I call you - um - I don’t know - Finn, perhaps?”

FN-2187 considers this. He likes the sound of ‘Finn’ better - especially the way Poe says it. It sounds much nicer than the way Kylo Ren barks ‘FN-2187’ when he has to speak to FN- to _Finn_ at all.

“I like that,” he says. “Sure. Call me Finn.”

“Lovely!” Poe says cheerfully. “I didn’t know anyone lived in this part of the woods - I was out hunting, me and Beebee here.” The sleek orange-and-white animal at his feet makes a little noise when he says its name. Finn squints down at it.

“That’s a dog, right?” he checks. “What were you hunting?”

“Yes, she’s a dog - a deerhound,” Poe confirms. “So we were hunting deer.” He shrugs. “But instead we found a beautiful man in a tower. You’re not a deer, right?”

Finn thinks the lilt to Poe’s voice means he’s teasing. “No,” he says, “not a deer.”

Poe nods. “D’you mind if we camp near your tower for the night, then, Finn?”

“Oh!” says Finn. “Sure!”

Poe has a tent set up in a very few minutes, and a little fire burning in front of it; he feeds Beebee and then sits back against a tree and sighs in contentment. Finn watches in fascination as Beebee sprawls across Poe’s lap and Poe ruffles her ears. The books he’s read have talked about dogs, but never mentioned that they are fun to pet.

And then Poe starts to sing, sweet and low and the most beautiful thing Finn has ever heard, and Finn sits there in his window utterly transfixed. So _that’s_ singing. He thinks he could listen to it forever.

Eventually Poe stops singing and banks the fire and goes into his tent, and so Finn retreats to his own bed and falls asleep wondering if Poe will still be there in the morning, and if he’ll maybe answer some of Finn’s many, many questions about the outside world.

*

Finn’s up with the dawn the next morning, and leans out the window to see that Poe _is_ still there - is, in fact, still asleep. Finn takes the opportunity to wash and dress as fast as he can, and is back at the window before Poe finally comes stumbling out of his tent, rubbing his face with one hand. Beebee greets her master with a chorus of happy yips and dances around his feet, and Finn can’t help laughing at the dog’s antics. Poe looks up and grins at him.

“Good morning, buddy!” he calls. “Been up long?”

“A little while,” Finn calls back. Poe laughs.

“I’m not good at mornings,” he confesses, sitting down under his tree again and sharing some sort of food - Finn is too high up to see what - with his dog. “So, I don’t suppose there’s an easier way for us to talk? A door you could use to come out?”

Finn shrugs. “No door,” he admits, “and I’m not supposed to leave the tower. But - oh!” He looks speculatively at his rope. It _is_ both thick and strong. “Can you climb?”

“Well enough,” Poe says, and Finn fastens the rope to the fireplace poker before he can think twice about it, lowers it out the window until it hits the briars below and the poker spans the window, braced against the stone. Poe comes over and catches the rope, then calls, “Wait just a little bit,” and draws his sword, cutting away some of the briars until there’s a narrow path to the tower wall. Then he leaves his sword with Beebee in the tent, wraps his hands in the thick rope, and starts to climb. Finn hauls in the excess rope as Poe gets higher and higher, and at last Poe reaches the windowsill and Finn clasps his arm and helps him up and over and in -

And for the very first time, there is someone in Finn’s tower who is neither Finn nor Master Ren.

Poe is about Finn’s own height, paler than Finn but darker than Master Ren’s pallor, with messy dark hair and stubble on his cheeks and chin, and wide dark eyes full of kindness, and startlingly red lips. His cheeks are pink from the exertion of climbing, and he’s very beautiful. Finn’s briefly lost for words.

Poe glances around the tower room, and then, grinning widely, bows to Finn. “Thank you for your hospitality, kind sir,” he says, and Finn can’t help smiling back.

“Thank you for - for climbing up,” he says. “I have - I have water, and food, if you want breakfast.”

“That would be very kind of you,” Poe says, and wanders about admiring the furniture while Finn puts together a quick plate of fruit and cured meat and bread. “Did you carve all of this?”

“I did,” Finn admits, and earns himself a dazzling smile.

“You’re very talented,” Poe tells him. “I’ve only rarely seen finer work, and _that_ commanded prices so high that only kings could afford it.”

Finn sits down on his bed, leaving Poe the chair, and leans forward. “Tell me about - about the world?” he asks, and Poe sits down across from him and takes an apple from the tray and smiles.

“Everything about the world?” he asks. “Because that would take a very long time - and I don’t know everything, after all.”

“Everything you know, then,” Finn says, and Poe nods and takes a bite of his apple.

“Let me see,” he says. “Well. Have you ever seen an orchard?” Finn shakes his head. “There’s an orchard on my father’s lands, apples and pears and peaches and cherries all in tidy rows…”

*

Poe stays for three days, sleeping in his tent at the base of the tower and climbing up each morning to spend the day telling Finn about the outside world and its wonders. He watches Finn carve and spin, and applauds his skill at both; he asks for Finn’s life story, and frowns at the description of Master Ren and of Finn’s long solitude. “It’s not right for you to be cooped up here,” he tells Finn earnestly. “You should get to _see_ all the things I’ve been telling you about.”

Finn shivers. “I want to,” he admits. “But - Master Ren.”

“I don’t know who this ‘Master Ren’ is, but he hasn’t any right to keep you here,” Poe says. “This tower’s inside the bounds of the kingdom of Yavin, and slavery is illegal here. You haven’t signed anything, and he’s not your parent, that you know of - and in any case you’re old enough that even a parent would not have any right to keep you anymore.”

“It - let me think about it,” Finn says, and Poe nods and drops the subject, tells Finn instead about the marketplace in the capital city where a customer can find very nearly anything at all, about the noise and the bright colors and the crowds.

Poe has to leave, at last, because he’s expected at home, and Finn watches him pack up his tent and ruffle Beebee behind the ears and wave up at Finn and go trotting off into the forest, watches until Poe is entirely out of sight, and sighs, and goes back to his spinning.

Ten days later, the day after the dark of the moon, Master Ren arrives the way he always does, stepping out of the fire with the boxes of supplies floating behind him. He sneers as Finn unpacks the supplies, paces the confines of the tower, glances out the window. He asks the same questions as always: has anyone been here? Has Finn spoken to anyone? Has Finn tried to leave the tower?

And Finn keeps his head down, and his voice even and unafraid, and for the first time ever, he lies.

*

Poe comes back the next month, and the month after that, and the month after that. He’s not predictable - some months he’s there near the full moon, some at the half moon, it really depends on when he can steal a few days from his duties, of which he apparently has many, to sneak out to the woods with Beebee. He brings a sling, the first time he returns, so that he can carry Beebee up the tower on his back. Finn is initially a little wary of the dog, having never encountered one before, but Beebee is friendly and adorable, and it’s not long before Finn is sitting on the floor with Beebee sprawled across his lap, rubbing her ears and laughing at the way her tail flails about, while Poe sits back in the chair which Finn has started thinking of as _Poe’s_ and grins down at both of them.

Poe brings with him fruits that Finn has never tasted before, a book of beautiful paintings, a guitar that he begins to teach Finn to play. He tells stories about the outside world that make Finn’s heart hurt for wanting to see it, and every time he leaves, he offers: “Come with me. I’ll show you everything.” But Finn does not - quite - dare.

And one evening, as they are watching the setting sun together, Poe says, “The gods forgive me,” and leans over and presses his lips to Finn’s.

Finn blinks at him in confusion as Poe leans back again. “What...what was that?”

“A kiss,” Poe says, a little sadly.

“Oh!” says Finn. Some of his books have talked about kissing. He touches his lips, which are tingling a little. “Why?”

Poe sighs. “Because I love you dearly, Finn of the tower, and I couldn’t bear to think that I might never have the chance to kiss you. I shan’t do it again if you don’t want me to.”

“Oh,” says Finn, wonderingly. He thinks about it for a while, about the way Poe’s eyes light up when he’s excited and the way he waves his hands when he talks, drawing pictures in the air, and the way he smiles up at Finn in the mornings, and the way he laughs, and the way he sings. And then he says, “Do it again. Please.”

“You’re sure?” Poe asks, eyes wide.

“Sure as sunrise,” Finn tells him. “I love you too, Poe Dameron, and I very much want you to kiss me again.”

Poe does.

*

Finn does not leave with Poe when Poe goes away, because Poe kisses him hard and says, “I have to tell my father I have made my choice - I will come back for you, soon as soon. A few days, no more.” So Finn waits.

And Finn forgets that it is nearly the dark of the moon.

*

Master Ren comes the morning after the dark of the moon, and the instant he lays eyes on Finn he screams with fury. Finn cowers back against the windowsill, startled and terrified, as Master Ren stalks towards him. “Someone else has been here,” Master Ren snarls in fury. “Someone else has taken what is mine - mine by right!”

“I don’t know what you mean!” Finn protests. Master Ren slaps him, sending him reeling, and he catches the windowframe only just in time to keep from falling.

“You were to be my perfect vessel - untouched, untainted, innocent and helpless,” Master Ren hisses. “Now you’re useless to me. It will be _decades_ before I have another chance to cast this spell, you traitorous wretch! Get you gone - to the ends of the earth I banish you!”

There is a great rushing wind in Finn’s ears, spinning him about until he has to shut his eyes to keep from vomiting with dizziness, and a sensation of movement, like flying in a dream only far less pleasant, and then Finn lands, hard, on ground which gives way underfoot, burning hot and uncomfortable, and opens his eyes again to discover that he stands, alone and utterly confused, in the middle of a vast and trackless expanse of sand.

*

Poe comes back to the tower humming happily, a song that Finn loves when he sings it, and finds the rope already hanging from the window, though Finn is nowhere in sight. Perhaps Finn is carving, or bathing; Poe shrugs to himself, leaves Beebee with a little heap of dried meat, and clambers with easy motions up the side of the tower. He’s gotten stronger since he started coming to visit Finn, and these days hauling himself up a sheer rock wall by way of a rope is almost easy, definitely routine. He’s thinking about the best way to introduce Finn to the concept of a _city_ , when the poor man has never even seen a _town_ , when he reaches the windowsill and finds his wrist clasped not in Finn’s warm hand but in a cold, clawlike glove. He looks up, startled and dismayed, to see a towering figure all in black, masked and gloved so no skin shows, glowering down at him.

“ _You_ ,” growls the masked figure - who must be Finn’s mysterious, terrifying Master Ren. “You have corrupted my perfect vessel.”

“Your _what now_?” Poe asks.

“My vessel,” Master Ren snarls. “Nameless, innocent, utterly untouched, thrice seven years of age and flawless. With his blood I could have raised my master even from the darkest hells, but _you_ have tainted him. I curse you, despoiler: wander friendless and homeless, with every man’s hand raised against you, until you find what I have cast away - wander even until the ends of the earth, if you can find them!” And he flings Poe down from the tower, into the tangle of thick, vicious brambles at its foot. Poe tries desperately to shield his face as he falls, but the brambles tear his arms bloody, scratch his face and rend his clothes, and he knows even before he struggles weakly from their thorned embrace the truth of what they have done:

He is blind.

Above him, he can hear Master Ren laughing, a cold cruel sound like the death of hope, and then Beebee is nosing at his hip, whining desperately, and Poe puts a hand on her collar and staggers away from the tower, away from the stone cage which no longer holds his lover, picking a direction purely at random, and the blood on his face mingles with his helpless, painful tears.


	2. Chapter 2

Finn picks a direction and starts walking, because there’s nothing else to do. He decides after about three steps that he doesn’t like sand at _all_ : it slides beneath his feet, it’s blazingly hot beneath his thin shoes, and there are occasional surprising little rocks that dig into the soles of his feet and make him hop and trip. If this is the outside world, it’s not _nearly_ as fun as Poe made it sound - but then, Master Ren said he was sending Finn to the ends of the earth, so presumably the nicer bits are towards the middle.

He’s been walking for a long time, the sun sinking slowly behind him and casting his shadow so far ahead of him he can’t see the end of it, and he’s desperately thirsty, when he sees something coming towards him. It takes him a while to decipher the moving figure: it’s bigger than a human, and oddly shaped, and it’s only when it draws quite near to him that he is able to figure out that it’s a _camel_ , with someone riding it. The rider is swathed in beige clothing that covers him or her from head to toe, bits of it blowing in the breeze of the camel’s passage, and wears a quarterstaff slung over one shoulder.

The camel comes to a stop beside him, and the rider says, in a voice much higher than Poe’s or Master Ren’s, “Are you trying to die out here?”

“No,” Finn croaks through a dry throat.

“Huh,” says the rider, and leans down to offer him a hand. Finn takes it, braces his foot on the rider’s and hoists himself clumsily onto the camel’s back behind the rider. The camel makes an annoyed sound, and the rider clucks to it soothingly, turns the animal around and sets it lolloping across the sand. Finn clings to his rescuer and tries very hard not to fall off as the camel lurches from one side to another, the saddle deeply uncomfortable beneath him, or to be smacked in the head by the rider’s staff as it sways back and forth.

It is nearly dark by the time they reach an oasis, a tiny little patch of scrubby grass and a few stunted trees around a spring, with a hut half-buried in the earth on the upwind side of the spring, sheltering it. Finn half-falls from the camel’s back and staggers across to the spring, cups his hands and scoops up cold cool water and drinks. It tastes better than anything ever has.

Behind him, he can hear the rider unsaddling the camel, and he turns once he’s drunk his fill to find that the rider has also unwound the cloth from around her face, and is regarding Finn with curious dark eyes.

“Thank you,” Finn tells her. “I owe you my life.”

“I wouldn’t leave my worst enemy to die in the desert,” the rider says, shrugging. “I’m Rey.”

“I’m Finn,” Finn says. “And - is there some way I can repay you?”

“What can you do?” Rey asks. Finn wracks his brain, thinks of something Poe said months ago -

“I can carve,” he says. “Very well.”

“Well, alright. I’ve wood. If your carvings are worth anything, I’ll sell them at the market. But for right now, come in and have dinner; it gets cold out here at night, and I’ve no mind to be out in it.”

“Thank you,” Finn says again, and follows her into her house.

Rey clearly lives alone: there is one chair at the table, one narrow bed big enough for a single person, a scattering of odds and ends, flowers in little pots beside the shuttered window and a doll propped up against the bed’s pillow. She makes dinner - flatbread and dried meat, simple and frugal - with the easy motions of someone who has done this very thing so many times she no longer has to think about it, and Finn savors every bite of his portion and thanks her solemnly for it.

“So, how did you end up in the desert, then?” Rey asks when they have eaten. Finn tells her about Master Ren’s curse, and she grimaces.

“Enchanters,” she says. “More trouble than they’re worth.”

“What do _you_ do here?” Finn asks.

“I’m a scavenger,” Rey says. “There was a great battle fought where the desert now lies, and many things are covered and uncovered by the sand. Some of them are valuable.” She slants a smile at him. “I’ve scavenged _you_ , too, I suppose.”

Finn laughs. “I guess you have,” he agrees.

He sleeps on the floor, rolled up in her only spare blanket, that night, and in the morning she takes the camel and goes out to scavenge, and he does his best to tidy the little house, sweeping the sand outside and dripping water onto the plants and wiping down the table and the shelves, and then sits downwind of the spring and whittles, with Rey’s spare knife, at a bit of wood. He’s made a pendant by the time she returns, late in the evening, a curving thing shaped a little like Beebee when she curls into a ball, and Rey examines it closely, turning it over and over in her hands, and then nods approvingly at him.

“This is fine work,” she says. “I think it will sell for a very nice sum.” She glances around at her tidied house, at the simple dinner Finn has dared to make, and nods again. “Alright. You can stay, if you like, until you’ve earned enough to see you safely back to your beloved’s kingdom.”

“Thank you,” Finn says, and she smiles, a little quirk of her lips that looks almost unpracticed.

“If you snore, I’ll make you sleep outside,” she tells him, and Finn smiles back.

*

Finn goes to market with her, some days later, to sell his carvings and help carry the supplies needed for two people. It’s...terrifyingly overwhelming. There are maybe a few dozen people at the market, which is held in a small town near the edge of the desert and attracts all the scavengers and hermits who choose to live in this inhospitable place, but a few dozen people is still a few dozen more than Finn has ever seen before, and he trails behind Rey, carrying whatever she hands him and trying not to gape at the many shapes and sizes and colors that humans come in. The owner of the trading post is an enormous man, taller than Master Ren and many times broader, who Rey says is called Unkar Plutt. The tiny, enormously wrinkled woman who owns the tavern is Maz Kanata. The short, squat scavenger who tries to sidle close enough to steal the camel, and whom Rey intimidates easily, she calls Teedo; the grey-bearded man who buys most of Finn’s carvings is Lor San Tekka. Finn’s head is spinning from the sheer number of _names_ , from trying to keep track of so many people and animals and sounds and smells and new experiences.

He clings to Rey a little tighter than he maybe should on the way back to her oasis and its blessed, silent solitude. “How do you keep from going mad, with that many people around?” he asks.

She laughs. “It gets easier with practice,” she tells him sympathetically. “You’ll see. Though I won’t send you to town by yourself until you’ve learnt to haggle.”

“Thank you,” Finn says, and she pats his hand where it’s clinging to her belt.

“Stick with me,” she says. “I’ll keep you safe.”

*

The weeks roll by while Finn learns to live on the edge of the desert, to steer the long-suffering camel to and from town, to sense the approach of the rare but terrifying sandstorms. Most days, he stays at the oasis, carving pendants and beads and toys; after a few months, the inhabitants of the market town even begin to commission things from him, and the caravan leaders who stop there put in orders for as many beads and pendants as he can create, to sell in towns and cities far from here. Someday, when Finn has saved enough money, he’ll go with one of those caravans, but he’s asked: the kingdom of Yavin is a year’s travel and more, farther than any of the caravans go. He’ll have to cross dozens of countries, skirt the edges of a vast salt sea, navigate at least one border between warring nations. He’ll need quite a lot of money, by his and Rey’s best estimate, and while his carvings do fetch good prices, a lot of that money goes to food for him and Rey, fodder for the camel (nameless, because Rey does not like to name things which will someday die), clothing and boots and the sundry things a man needs to live in the desert sun.

It’s going to take him a while to save enough.

In the meantime, though, Finn comes to like living with Rey. She’s got a bit of a temper, and she doesn’t like to talk as much as Poe did, but she’s sweet when she thinks no one can see, and she never complains about having to teach Finn all the skills he’s never learned. She won’t tell him how she came to live beside the desert - “None of your business, that’s why,” she tells him sharply when he asks - but she does tell stories of the beauty of the wide sands, of the fascinating things she’s found when the winds reveal some new corner of the ancient battlefield, of the golden spiders which curl themselves up and roll down the sides of sand-dunes and the huge-eared foxes that startle so easily that she’s only ever caught the briefest glimpses of them. She doesn’t love the desert, but she knows it as well as she knows the shape of her own hand, and Finn spends many evenings sitting at her feet and watching her as she conjures up pictures with her words.

Some days he goes with her out into the desert - days when she’s found some object that it takes more than two hands to budge - and there he is even more in awe of her, of the way she dances over the dunes and the strength in her hands and the unerring sense of direction which keeps them on course even when there are no landmarks Finn can find. He helps her unearth fantastical suits of armor and broken, gem-hilted weapons and things he cannot name, and in return she shows him the wheeling path of the desert hawks and the hidden lairs of the bat-eared foxes and the tracks of deadly, perfectly camouflaged serpents.

It’s been nearly half a year when Finn looks up from the tunic he is mending - one of Rey’s, because he has more skill with a needle and thread, and so has taken over all the sewing for the household - to see her limned in firelight, hair turned gold by the flickering flames, all her concentration bent on honing the sleek knife which never leaves her boot, and realizes, to his astonishment and dismay, that if what he felt for Poe was love - _is_ love - then he loves Rey too. She is as dear to him, as wonderful in his eyes, as Poe; they are very little alike, and yet they are both beautiful to him, both glorious, both - both beloved.

Finn’s not sure what to do about that. So he stays silent, and works hard, and the seasons keep rolling by.

*

Poe wanders. He’s not sure what direction he’s going - not even sure he’s going the same direction consistently - though he finds that the curse Master Ren placed upon him turns his steps away from towns and cities, ever deeper into trackless wilderness. Beebee is his faithful companion, his eyes and ears. She drives away a bear, at one point; weeks later, she stands in the entrance to the cave she found him and faces down what sounds like an enormous pack of wolves. She guides him to isolated farmhouses where he can beg for food and a night’s shelter from well-disposed farmers, and Poe sings for his supper more than once, thanking his lucky stars that he’s always had a good voice and knows most of the more common songs of half a dozen kingdoms. His injuries heal in time, though his sight does not return; kinder than usual farmers’ wives give him a sturdy tunic and breeches, rough cloth but warm, and a bandage to tie about his face so that his eyes are not re-damaged.

He is cold often, wet from rain and falling into streams; he is sunburnt often, too, and occasionally he is both cold _and_ sunburnt, which is frankly a depressing state of affairs. He grows thin from little food, and his feet blister and then grow tough from walking, always walking. He learns to turn his clever tongue to begging, to flattery. He cuts himself a long staff, both to tap the road ahead of him - it saves him several spills - and, now and again, to make it clear that blind or not he is not helpless. More than one would-be robber goes limping away from an encounter with the blind man and the blind man’s dog.

Poe’s not sure where he’s going, or how he’ll know that he got there when and if he does, but the curse means he can’t go home, and there’s always the chance - slim though it may be - that somewhere, somehow, he’ll stumble across Finn again, if Finn still lives. Stranger things have happened, after all.

*

Finn looks up from his carving as Rey leads the camel into the shade of their scrubby little trees, and then leaps to his feet. The camel is carrying a man in tattered, filthy clothing, and close by the camel’s forelegs a dog is dancing in worry and devotion as Rey helps its master down. The man has a bandage wrapped around his eyes - how did a blind man come so far into the desert, and _why_ , Finn wonders - but he smiles in Rey’s general direction, bows a little, an oddly courtly gesture from a half-starved vagabond.

“My thanks, kind stranger,” he says, and Finn makes a strangled sound of horror and delight so intermingled he cannot separate the two and stumbles forward.

“Poe,” he says hoarsely. “Poe Dameron.”

Poe turns his face towards Finn - and yes, it _is_ , Poe, half-starved and filthy but _Poe_ \- and smiles, sudden and sweet and startled. “Finn?” he asks, and Finn throws his arms around Poe and clings to him, weeping for the horrid scars which mar Poe’s lovely face, for the signs of starvation and privation on Poe’s dusty form. Poe has his head buried in the curve of Finn’s neck, clinging to him just as hard as Finn is holding on to Poe, and Finn’s tears drip down onto the stained bandage across Poe’s eyes, soak it with bitter salt water.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Rey says faintly. “Finn - Finn, look.” Finn lifts his head, blinking down at Poe’s dear, scarred face, to see that where his tears have fallen, the scars are melting away, leaving unmarred skin behind. Poe draws in a sharp, half-desperate breath, and pulls the tear-soaked cloth away from his eyes, and blinks, once, twice, three times -

And looks up at Finn with wide, gorgeous, _working_ eyes. “Finn, you _miracle_ ,” he breathes, and hauls Finn into a deep and desperate kiss.

“...So you’re Finn’s Poe,” Rey says, long minutes later, when Finn and Poe have pulled apart and are just sort of staring at each other in wonder. Poe startles, and turns to her, and gives her a full courtly bow, which looks rather odd given his battered clothing.

“And you are the woman who just saved my life,” he says. “Thank you.”

“She saved mine, too,” Finn says. “Poe, this is Rey. She’s...really wonderful.”

Rey slants a smile at him. “Come and have dinner,” she says. “You look like you could use something to eat.”

“Thank you,” Poe says, and follows her into the house. He feeds Beebee first, giving all of his share of the dried meat to the dog lying down on his feet out of the way, and then devours quite a lot of flatbread and greens, while Finn explains how _he_ got to this out-of-the-way place.

“I was saving up to join a caravan and come find you,” he tells Poe, “but it’s really just as well I didn’t, since you were coming _here_!”

“I wasn’t coming here _deliberately_ ,” Poe points out. “If anything, Beebee led me here. I just followed her.”

“Good dog,” Finn tells Beebee, who wags her tail and looks smug.

“So,” says Rey, who has a look Finn can’t quite parse on her lovely face, “now what? I know Finn doesn’t have enough money to get _both_ of you home.”

“No,” Finn agrees. “Not even enough for me alone, actually.”

Poe frowns. “I’d have to visit your market town, but it’s entirely possible my father has contacts here - and if he does, they’ll get us home, without you having to bankrupt yourself.”

“Good,” says Rey, and gets up and goes outside to tend to the camel. Finn watches her go, confused. She’s normally friendlier than that - well, with him, at least.

“Finn, are you and Rey - more than friends?” Poe asks after a long moment. He’s not looking at Finn; instead, he’s concentrating on getting the dirt out of Beebee’s fur. Finn blinks at him.

“...No?” he says finally. “I - she took me when she didn’t have to, and she’s been kind to me. And - and - I don’t know how this works, you know that, but - I think I love her, as much as I love you. But I loved you first.”

“I see,” Poe says slowly, and looks up as Rey comes back in, gazes at her as though he’s trying to see what Finn sees, her grace, her kindness, her fierce pride and her soul-deep beauty.

“I see,” he says again, and Rey raises an eyebrow but does not ask.

*

Three days later, they go to market together, Poe on the camel behind Rey because he’s still weak from long months of little food, Finn and Beebee trotting beside the camel together. Rey bargains with Unkar Plutt while Finn brings Poe to the tavern, where tiny Maz Kanata takes one look at him and says, “Poe Dameron, what on earth are you doing all the way out _here_?”

“Getting a curse removed, auntie,” Poe says, bowing over her hand. “And what are _you_ doing in this dusty place?”

“Finding errant princes, apparently,” Maz says, and half an hour later Poe has arranged for passage back to Yavin for himself and Finn - “And anyone else you fancy bringing along,” Maz adds, winking.

They tell Rey about it that night, and she smiles tightly. “Good,” she says. “I wish you both well.”

And Finn glances at Poe, who nods, turns back to Rey and holds out both his hands and says, “Come with us. I love you as much as I love Poe, and I want you to be with me always; come with us, please.”

Rey looks at Poe, something wild in her eyes, and Poe nods again. “I owe you my life, and Finn’s life,” he says softly. “Finn loves you, and since I rather think he has very good taste, that means you’re a pretty wonderful person. Given a little time, I think I could love you too - and even if you never care for me that way, I think you love _Finn_ , and I am willing to share if you are. Come home with us, Rey. Please.”

Rey looks from Poe to Finn and back again several times, and then she looks around her tiny house, at the single narrow bed and the spare chair Finn has carved and the doll lying lonely on the pillow, and then she says, voice hoarse as if she’s holding back tears, “I’m bringing my plants. And my camel.”

“Of course,” Poe says instantly.

Finn holds out a hand, and Rey steps into the curve of his arms and kisses him sweet and hesitant, reaches out to pull Poe into the embrace, and says, “Then I’ll come with you. Home. I’ll come home with you.”

“Thank you,” Finn whispers into her hair, and the three of them stand there, clinging to each other, for a long, long time.

*

The stories say that the celebration when Prince Poe Dameron and his consorts, Finn the Healer and Rey the Desert Walker, returned to Yavin went on for a year and a day, and that the Prince and his beloveds ruled wisely and well; and for all I know, they are ruling there still.

Happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> Second chapter tomorrow!
> 
> I do have a tumblr over at imaginarygolux.tumblr.com; feel free to drop by and say hi!


End file.
